TALENT POINT IN FOCUS: Future Talents Generation – A European Talent Point in Hungary

By Dezső Farkas, FTG Talent Point representative

The Future Talents Generation (FTG) consists of motivated young adults under 30, whose aim is partly to encourage their generation to pursue their dreams, partly to change the attitude of youngsters to take responsibility for their own actions. FTG, a non-profit organization, was founded in June 2015; by now they have more than 120 active members all over the country. They have registered student associations as member organizations in 5 different universities. They also have 2 member organizations outside Hungary: Future Talents Generation – Pakistan and Future Talents Generation – Austria took off in the end of 2016. They have already organized 2 Erasmus+ projects in 2016 and 2017. Four of their members have TEDxTalks. In the past 2.5 years they created several different extracurricular talent support programs which provide practical knowledge and networking possibilities/capital for their members. Well-known multinational corporations and entrepreneurs, a number of renown private individuals support their programs and finance their innovative ideas to let the programs be offered to talented youngsters free of charge. Another interesting addendum is that FTG set the Rubik’s cube record.

To ensure the quality and the long-term development of the organization, they established an advisory board consisting of highly educated, famous, successful businessman or business women from Hungary.

Let’s see some of their programs. They established a free training program for students from elementary school to college graduation. Their priority events organized by member organizations include the so called Mentor Night, a joint dinner for 10 students and 10 senior managers, and the so-called Big4 Conference with partners and executives of the four biggest auditors. The FTG Attaché Program and Success Project started in March 2016. By changing the mentality of the high-school generation, their goal is to maximize their “Cool-factor”. They have monthly training courses covering CV design, job interview, relationships in life, entrepreneurship, case studies or presentation techniques. Moreover, participants must face different challenges month by month such as conducting interviews with a successful person or reading a book about success or organizing a charity event etc. For the elementary school students, FTG created the website okosdoboz.hu to develop the cognitive abilities of the younger generations. The youngsters can develop their cognitive abilities with the help of special on-line games and videos.

FTG conducted a research on success, made interviews with remarkable people and entrepreneurs, also asked high-school and college student about their concepts of success. Their results were presented at a TEDx conference and a Templeton conference held at Central European University.

One of their latest program is the so-called InnerTalent, a free website: innertalent.hu, addressing mainly youngsters aged 14-25. InnerTalent is meant to facilitate the development of young people through different challenges and to connect them with each other and the corporate/entrepreneurial sector. On the InnerTalent website you can find challenges in three different categories: FTG challenges focuses on improving cognitive capabilities, recognizing the possibilities of cooperation and mastering a success-oriented way of thinking. Corporate challenges: through these challenges set by multinational corporations; students have to face issues that reflect real market needs and get prepared for resolving them. Individual challenges are set by the users for themselves. This could mean giving up smoking, starting a business or even the climbing Mount Everest. Young people have the opportunity to include a personal referee in the process who follows and supervises the achievement of the goals. The website also encourages companies and young people to set challenges that conform to the S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time specific) criteria. In addition, it website provides an opportunity to build a mentor-mentee network with the inclusion of high school/university teachers and successful entrepreneurs.